An Empirical Evaluation of Information Sharing's Impact on Profitability; Evidence from the Solar Sector

Abstract

The role of online marketing is significant. Businesses strive to maximize their profit, and there are low-budget but efficient digital solutions for this aim. Social media sites are not just a connection point but also a great surface to collect information regarding products and/or companies. Even though these free opportunities are often used, websites are the „classical” standalone digital surfaces used for marketing purposes. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) provides various techniques to improve the companies' websites' SERP (Search Engine Result Page). In addition, it could provide even statistically proven financial benefits. The current study analyzes the SEO’s influence on the financial performance of SMEs in the solar sector. The nationwide study based on the Kruskal-Wallis test revealed the importance of connecting social media sites to the company's website. The proper Social SEO results in significantly higher after-tax profit. Regarding the first contentful paints (first feedback to the browser about the website loading), the Pearson correlation coefficients showed up moderately strong, positive, significant relationships with many financial indicators.